Anyone working in any medical context should be required to wear a #Mask whenever they are in the workplace.
"Until when?” you say?
Until they retire.
Just like spay painters, welders, stone kitchen fitters, medical folks need to wear their PPE whenever they are on the job.
For ever.
Brought to you by the sheer horror of watching nurses cheering at not having to wear masks around patients, as mask-mandates are lifted.
@PamW We literally have *at the same time* a catastrophe of folks working with engineered stone countertops receiving terminal Silicosis diagnoses at 20-30 years old, because they weren’t wearing masks. It’s madness.
I wear a powered respirator, with a huge battery and spaceman helmet whenever I step into a welding booth, no reason a doctor or a nurse can’t wear an N95.
There are good arguments for N95 being a problem for a person whose main task is to communicate effectively with their patients. (Especially that Deaf patients frequently lip-read)
These are not arguments for lifting mask mandates but for developing and mass-producing clear faceshield medical powered respirators, which we should have been doing for the last 3 years.
@Leszek_Karlik @PamW yeah absolutely, though a lot of powered respirators (like my welding helmet) are designed to protect the wearer, and work on positive air pressure, so a person with Covid wearing one will actively vent more virus into their environment. Proper around-the-neck (or face) sealing really needs exhaust air management.
One thing is for certain, medicine is going to need to become less casual, and more like biohazard research labs.
Exactly, a medical powered respirator would have to be equipped with N95/P3 filters on the outlet, not only on the inlets, but it's not really rocket science and I thought we should start working on them right away in 2020.
Three years have passed and, apparently, markets are not that good at the best allocation of resources because we got those weird bubble helmets for frequent fliers but not medical respirators for doctors and nurses.
@Leszek_Karlik @PamW Ubiquitous infection and endemic presence was the actively pursued policy pretty much everywhere, so there would be no remaining justification for the costs of preventing infection.
At least that’s all one can assume, if it holds true that the purpose of a system is what it does.
@Leszek_Karlik @metaning @PamW
This is where I get tripped up, yelling at the top of my lungs all.sjift can be rough, but also keeping some people's hearing aids on is honestly.like trying to put hearing aids on a cat. And a lot of older people don't know any ASL so even the small basics I have are useless.
@technicolourPenguin @Leszek_Karlik @PamW There will no doubt be a near-term future of clear face shields, worn over masks, whose only purpose is to have amplifying speakers, (large) text display, facial expression drawings etc so that patients can get more visual cueing from masked medical staff.
I expect them to appear in Japanese nursing homes about a decade before they come to the west.
@onepict @PamW I was very lucky to have a high school ceramics teacher in the 1980s who was clear about the dangers of ceramics-related dust, and always insisted on wet-cleaning the studio.
Fast forward to 2010 and I’m in a sculpture studio studying at an art school, and people are broom sweeping clay dust off the work benches. *facepalm*
@metaning @Tattooed_mummy Currently on mat leave so every time I’ve stepped into a hospital since Spring 2020 I’ve had to wear a mask. It just became second nature that I would put one on as I walked through the doors, and I got to a point where I felt naked if I wasn’t wearing one.
Then I went for a job interview at a hospital since they’ve relaxed rules and it was so bizarre to see everyone’s faces and to be told “yeah you don’t need to wear that”
@metaning
Even painters, welders, fitters, etc., get to remove their masks when they aren't actively doing work that could harm them.
Masks worn while a communicable disease is going around?
Absolutely.
Masks worn for 12 hours a day every working day until retirement just because someone is living in fear of the possibility of an outbreak?
Be reasonable.
@ColleenLudgate I think everyone should be masked at all times while interacting with other people in enclosed spaces.
However, medical practitioners are unique in that they can require their patients to remove their masks as a part of treating them.
This isn’t rocket science. Medical settings are concentration points for sick people, and vulnerable people. Medical practitioners have an ethical obligation to do no harm to their patients. Exposing them to airborne pathogens is unethical.
@metaning Do you ever leave your house?
You are exposed everywhere - not just in a hospital.
They do mask up when a patient is at risk, and that means gloves, gown, etc., all of which is unnecessary when a patient is vital.
Broken leg? Oh, better make sure they don't catch a cold!
@ColleenLudgate I do, and I wear a mask whenever I go into a space where there are other people.
Colleen, I can see you’re just trying to pick a fight - you’re grasping for straw men about broken legs when the principle is remarkably simple; a practitioner and a patient should not be in a mutually unmasked space. Since patients’ masks are often removed for procedures, this means practitioners must remain masked.
Failing to wear a mask is unethical.
@metaning I'm not looking to pick a fight at all. I'm saying that you can't use your own fears as a means of controlling others.
Grasping for straws? You did that when you brought in the fact that painters and welders wear PPE. Completely different circumstances.
Forcing people to do anything against their will when there is no immediate need for such is also unethical.
Agree to disagree...or don't - I'm not continuing this conversation.
If you're providing care, that person is vulnerable. Full stop. Even in your broken leg example, that kids body needs to use energy to heal. Getting sick will slow and complicate the healing process and by nature healing an injury leaves you more.vulnerable to illness
The residents in my care are usually healthy. I still mask. Why? They're geriatric. They're in a position where they need care, which leaves them.more vulnerable. Getting sick.could kill them.
You're right, you can take your ppe off when there's no risk to anyone. That is common sense. So, at the desk charting alone? Knock yourself out. Taking a shit? No mask needed there. Like you said. Common sense. Maybe you should try it
@ColleenLudgate @metaning you weren't in the conversation, you were just arguing to argue.
Enjoy your fourth round of covid sweetie.
“Broken leg? Oh, better make sure they don't catch a cold!”
Perhaps you might re-read that and ask what sort of sociopath might make such a statement.
@metaning whoo I feel this.
I work in an OR housekeeping, and it's unnerving how often I'm the only one in the room wearing a mask.
@jgordon @SallyStrange Problem is that public health doesn’t work when it’s based on choice in the context of contagious conditions. And the bigger issue, is that (some percentage of) health care workers don’t seem to want to wear masks. That’s where we get to the bigger issue of “your freedom ends, the moment it restricts the freedom of another”.
If an immuno-compromised person can’t go to the dentist, because the dentist won’t make their receptionist wear a mask…?
@metaning @SallyStrange Ideally patients with immune disorders on problem list would be flagged so that receptionists can wear a mask. It would require software changes to the scheduling system and that requires an act of a deity. In practice patients would need to self-identify.
Of course most of the real value comes from the patient wearing a high quality (not cloth) mask.
I should have said "Ideal way to flag a patient". So only "ideal" in the context of flagging a vulnerable patient in a way that would be visible to receptionist.
@jgordon @SallyStrange So here’s several problems:
- the practice is unlikely to require all its staff to mask, even if you tell them.
- if they do mask up, it’s likely to be worthless surgical masks, and they may refuse to even possess N95.
- they’re unlikely to tell their other patients to wear masks.
- even if they do tell them, people will turn up without masks “oh I forgot mine, but I feel OK”.
- unmasked delivery drivers.
This is all stuff I’ve seen first hand.
Practically speaking the best bet is for the vulnerable person to wear a really good mask (N95, elastomer). That's going to be 95% of the benefit. As you point out there's no way other people in waiting room will wear a mask.
@metaning Hopefully you don’t have a need for care but you may find nurses and physicians harder to replace than you think.
In reality many of my patients seemed to enjoy coming to clinic. They were older however.
@alison …and you look around bewildered thinking “did everyone just go mad at once and now the sane people look ‘crazy’ for pointing out how deep the cognitive dissonance around them is?”…
…and then you remember they’ve all had a virus that causes neurological symptoms, and yes, the majority of people might actually have acquired brain injuries, and they’re in charge of *everything*.
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